5 comments

Will, your opinion would be less crass if it more accurately reflected that this was a dig arranged by a local club with a farmer for a charity. The land was not scheduled and the detectorists followed the law to the T in reporting this item and handing it over to the relevant authorities. It's potentially a hugely historically important find that shouldn't be blighted.

Detectorists from Derbyshire went into Leicestershire, detected on land without the landowner's permission, contravened the Natural England environmental stewardship agreement that was protecting the KNOWN archaeology on this land, contravened the Code of practice for responsible metal detecting by digging a large hole well below the ploughsoil, persuaded Police to stand guard for 2 days by telling them that it probably contained treasure when the only threat to it had been created by the DETECTORISTS going to the media to make their 'find' of a person's grave public knowledge, expect Leicestershire Council to spend Leicestershire residents' council tax money to clean up their mess, then have the absolute audacity to criticise the archaeologists for following legal and ethical procedures. The locals should be in uproar about the METAL DETECTORISTS and be praising the council for acting in their best interests, not the other way around. The detectorists should be ashamed.